February 14, 2006

China Daily/AP: there is "fresh demand from couples who are going under the kinfe to get their noses and even their eyes done as a sign of their love for one another.... 'I suggested it as a way of celebrating our relationship and bringing us closer together with a special kind of bond,' Liu Yan, 24, was quoted as saying of the matching nose jobs for her and her 28-year-old boyfriend."

GIS data can find you love: MapInfo released some Valentine's demographic summaries, such as "Laredo, home to Miss Texas USA, topped the metropolitan area list as the best place for single men seeking single women, with 89 men per 100 women in the 25 to 34 age group." Odd that no one wants to advertise Sunnyvale as one of the best places for single women to find single men (8th highest male-female ratio in US in 2000). GeoCarta has more of the MapInfo stats.

Kazo, a 4-month-old African Lion cub, plays with her new canine friend Cairo, an Italian mastiff puppy, on Friday at the Wild Animal Park in Escondido, Calif. Cairo was adopted by the park after her mother was rescued through Operation Canine Rescue in response to Hurricane Katrina.Photo credit: Christian Calabria, Associated Press

July 7, 2005

I was disoriented this morning when parakkum told me of the attacks in London this morning. I had stayed up late last night finishing Gentlemen's Game, a Greg Rucka novel that starts off with a coordinated attack on the London Underground.

We live in era where the terrible attacks that our fiction writers imagine become reality. I hope that amidst today's attacks the good that we imagine comes to life as well.

I know that several of you reading this have strong ties to London, and my thoughts and feelings go out to you, the ones you care about, and the city you cherish.

November 7, 2003

a) the goat was not, in fact, Spanish, but Portuguese, and is currently living safely in a wildlife preserve in East Molesey.

b) The Tango is a dance made famous in Argentina. "Erotic licking" plays no part in the Tango. Neither, of course, do balloons.

c) only a lunatic would apply shoe-polish to a weasel.

d) if the alleged incidents had in fact occurred in broad daylight during a car-boot sale in Harrow then there would be photographs, and quite possibly a plaster cast.

e) by now the "Use by" stamps on the yoghurt would have expired, indicating it as unfit for human consumption.

I would also like to add that any rumors suggesting my involvement are ludicrous, and midgets? Please. They were clearly dwarves.

I think this can help clear up this nascent trend of pre-denying for politicians. The first thing a candidate should do when running for office is to deny all of the rumors about some scandalous incident. If people don't know what you're referring to even better, but if it somehow the unnamed allegation you were deny gets out, and people start saying, for example, that you are a grope-monkey, you have to proceed to step 2, which is to combine your denial with an apology. Here's a pretty good example:

"I know that the people of California can see through this trash politics. Let me tell you something, let me tell you something. A lot of those that you see in the stories is not true, but at the same time, I have to tell you that I always say, that wherever there is smoke, there is fire. That is true. So I want to say to you, yes, that I have behaved badly sometimes. Yes, it is true that I was on rowdy movie sets and I have done things that were not right which I thought then was playful but now I recognize that I have offended people. And to those people that I have offended, I want to say to them I am deeply sorry about that and I apologize because this is not what I'm trying to do." (link)

This was a pretty good denial, though he left a loophole by saying "a lot of those...is not true." He would do even better to give an flat out denial. Then you would have a beautiful catch: Those that accuse you are liars guilty of trash politics. Only those who haven't accused you are telling the truth, and to them you apologize.

"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to; but if he didn't want to he was sane and had to."

October 27, 2003

It's one thing to read about stories in the news, it's an entirely different experience when there's a personal connection, even if you're not directly involved. I just found out that a friend's dad had two rockets fly into his hotel room during the al-Rashid hotel attacks. He had the amazing presence of mind to take cover under a bed and escaped with his life and an injured arm, which should recover fully. My thoughts go out to my friend, his dad, and his family, who will be reunited soon.cus anime is teh s uck - Ah, the rare opportunity to use lj as a means for serious communication.

June 1, 2003

A co-worker of mine recently took a trip to the Three Gorges region and came back with pictures of the work there, including plans for the huge dam. One of the interesting photos he had was of a small city that had been relocated higher up the river bank. You could see the old abandoned city below and the new city essentially rising out of it. Soon I guess it will be like Atlantis.

I was reminded of my co-worker's trip after reading this Washington Post article, which makes me scared about the whole affair. Here's a short summary of the scarier points:
- "Officials have been arrested for providing construction companies with shoddy materials"
- "Of the 90 tributaries entering the reservoir, 60 are now considered heavily polluted"
- "Millions of water rats have scampered up the bank... their carcasses will now roll back into the reservoir laden with poison."
- "Each year, the area around Chongqing will dump 350 million cubic meters of wastewater and 400 million cubic meters of industrial waste into the reservoir"

May 23, 2003

The European Central Bank is thinking of adding RFID tags to banknotes to protect against forgery (story).

In addition to anti-forgery benefits, think of all the efficiencies the tags will introduce: ATMs won't give out the wrong amount, banks can count stacks of bills faster, thieves can choose their victims more carefully. With RFID crime does pay... efficiently.

May 13, 2003

News notes:
- Bombing in Riyadh kills 29+, declared by Powell to be Al Qaeda
- New $20 bills with colored background
- Johannson officially leaving Caps, feels slighted at short ice time in final game
- Beijing declares SARS under control as number of cases in China eclipses 5100

April 13, 2003

April 9, 2003

This is the "big day" for our hawks. There's looting, celebration, and fighting in the streets of Baghdad. Images of Iraqis beating up toppled Hussein statues are everywhere, and the journalists's minders have disappeared.

April 3, 2003

March 29, 2003

A-day in Iraq
- "Shock and awe" supposed to happen today
- rapid series of explosions on TV
- supposedly hitting presidential palaces
- US Marines forces to take down US flag, not occupiers
- France announces it will veto any resolution allowing US/Britain to administer post-war reconstruction
- Port of Umm Qasr (Iraq's only outlet to Persian Gulf) under coalition control
- More than 1,000 sorties on Iraq
- 3 American casualties thus far
- Major riots in Cairo

March 23, 2003

- Al-Jazeera shows video of capture/killed US soldiers, some shot in head
- Intense fighting around An Nasiriyah
- CNN reports explosion outside US Cent Comm in Qatar, news of this disappears
- Second appearance of Hussein on TV, cites battles in Basra an Umm Qasr

March 22, 2003

- US soldier may be responsible for grenade attack on own troops
- Patriot missile may have shot down Royal Air Force plane
- Northern campaign stalled due to failed negotiations for base rights in Turkey
- Calvalry half-way to Baghdad

February 10, 2003

France, Germany and Belgium blocking NATO efforts to send defensive equipment to Turkey
- Turkey has called for assistance under Article 4 of NATO
- France, Germany and Belgium believe that it will hurt diplomatic efforts with Iraq

October 24, 2002

Sniper arrested
- caught at Maryland rest stop
- sleeping in car matching description police were searching for
- John Allen Muhammad and stepson Lee Malvo (17)
- former military
- You asked us to say, 'We have caught the sniper like a duck in a noose.' Reference to folk tale, where rabbit catches duck in noose, and is then dragged by duck into a tree stump, where it is stranded
- sniper made reference to Alabama shooting, which led to Tacoma, WA
- gun found link to shootings
- hole in trunk to shoot from

Giants even up series
- 4-3 victory on David Bell single to drive in JT Snow

Study shows that Lorenzo's Oil works
- functions by breaking down fatty acids that are associated with the genetic disorder
- adrenoleukodystrophy causes victims to lose ability to move, hear, speake, and eventually breathe